A RESOURCE FOR CAREGIVERS

To psychiatrists and other therapists

Please don’t let your patients feel that you are judging them. Your job is to make them feel as safe and as comfortable as possible. I am aware of the fact that this is not easy.

If a doctor comes on time to his appointment in a hospital, it will show his patients that they do matter. If you were in a regular hospital and called for emergency surgery, that would be different but you are working in a psychiatric hospital because you chose to do so.

When a patient’s parent calls, they are desperate and go from one crisis to another, so please take their calls or call back.

When a person with a mental illness is psychotic and maybe out of control, what are the parents supposed to do? They need your immediate input, you know. Those parents don’t have an orderly with a ready-filled-syringe to administer a shot the way you do in a hospital. They need help that minute.

A good sense of humor is helpful here too. I have seen it in action and amazed at the change in a patient when someone jokes with him. Maybe because it is such a common, daily, ordinary thing to do and makes them feel more ordinary.

Psychiatric text books tell a psychiatrist to keep his distance but they omit to add – a little distance only. Your patient needs some empathy; needs to know that you are human .

Doctor, can you imagine what it must be like for a person to lose his/her sanity? I can’t begin to imagine this. What I can suggest is that you give your patient something to hang onto – maybe even some hope. I know that nobody can live without any hope. Try this because no sanity and no hope is not the recipe for a return to a more or less healthy existence.

About Jill

Author of books and articles on support and experiences of living with a mentally ill family member. My aim in blogging is to let others see how a loving family, with a father and husband who is able to give unconditional love, can help the family cope. Many call me the blogging grandma.'